Residents in northern Baltimore County have scheduled a community meeting Wednesday to discuss a proposed natural burial ground in their area. The meeting will be held at 7:30 p.m. at St. Peter's Lutheran Church, 4300 Church Road in Hampstead.
Doug Carroll and Deirdre Smith are seeking to open a natural burial ground called Resh Mill Preserve on 66 acres they own in the Baltimore County portion of Hampstead. Instead of having hardwood caskets, concrete burial vaults and headstones, bodies would be buried directly in the ground with only small flat headstones.
They say the goal is to provide a more environmentally friendly burial service while maintaining natural features of the land.
Carroll and Smith lobbied for, and won, Baltimore County Council approval for a change in zoning law to allow natural burial grounds in certain rural zones. But some county residents have expressed concerns, including whether the burial ground would increase traffic or contaminate groundwater supplies.
County Councilman Wade Kach, a Cockeysville Republican who represents the area, is sponsoring a bill that would require property owners to provide a hydrogeology report to the county as part of the approval process for a natural burial ground. The council will hold a public hearing on Kach's bill at 2 p.m. on June 30, followed by a vote at 6 p.m. on July 6.
Both council meetings will be held at the Historic Courthouse, 400 Washington Ave. in Towson.
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